It was very late, and the restaurant was nearly empty. I had just stepped up to take their dessert orders when he came through the door, a short, small-boned, wiry little man with a thin moustache. He had dark, gleaming eyes, quick and feral beneath the slouchy gray hat. He opened the door very wide as he came in, and a whirl of snow swept in behind him, then lay melting on the checkered tile floor as he moved smoothly to the bar.
I watched him as he propped his elbow up on the bar, then glanced back toward me.
“I’ll just have a dish of chocolate ice cream,” the young one said.
I wrote the order on my pad, a quick squiggle of lines, then glanced back toward the bar.
The little man slid off the stool and now stood beside it, brushing snow from the shoulders of his overcoat as Sandy, the bartender that night, leaned toward him. I saw the little man’s mouth twitch, then Sandy nod, turn around, and pull a bottle of scotch from the shelf.
A voice drew my attention from him.
“Just an espresso,” the older woman said.
The man pulled himself up on one of the barstools, but did not actually appear to be sitting on it. Rather, he seemed to be floating on a cushion of air, his body tilting right and left, while he drew his eyes over to the mirror behind the bar, then focused them with a dire intensity on the reflection of the man in the red tie.
“Bring me a brandy,” Joey Santucci said.
I glanced down at the pad, scribbled the order quickly, then looked back toward the bar. The little man had wheeled around on the stool, facing me silently, his hands deep in the pockets of the snow-flecked overcoat. His eyes moved from Santucci to the man in the dark suit, the one who had ordered nothing after dinner, and whom I took for Santucci’s bodyguard.
I turned, walked around the table, and headed back toward the kitchen. I could see the man at the bar spin slowly around as I passed him, his eyes trained on the mirror again, the four seated figures he could see very clearly in the glass.
Louie snapped the dessert order from my hand as I came through the double doors. He was grumbling angrily.
That bunch at table six ever going to leave?”
“I don’t know.”
“Chocolate ice cream. That fat cow ordered dessert?”
“The espresso is for her.”
Normally I would have dropped the liquor order on my way to the kitchen, but I had not done that, I realized suddenly, because something had warned me away, had unnerved me.
“Well, go get the drink, Steve,” Louie said sharply. “I’ll have the dessert ready by the time you get back.”
I stepped toward the door, following Louie’s instructions. I walked slowly, haltingly, the air growing thick around me. I made it all the way to the door, then pressed my face up against the little square of glass that looked out onto the dining room. I could not move any farther.
“What’s the matter, Steve?” Louie asked after a moment.
I didn’t answer. Through the small square window, I could see the man at the bar, his hands still deep in his overcoat pockets, the untouched drink resting before him, its amber reflection winking in the mirror, the now motionless eyes trained determinedly on the oblivious, unthinking family.
“Steve?”
I didn’t look back at Louie. I felt the words form in my mouth, but I’m not sure I ever actually said them: “He’s going to kill them.”
I began to tremble. I could feel myself trembling. It was a sensation of helplessness, of being something small and delicate before a line of black, rumbling clouds. To the left, I could see the little man as he brought one hand from his coat, stretched his fingers slowly, then returned it to the pocket. A few feet away, the young girl fiddled with her napkin, looking out of sorts, while her mother toyed coquettishly with her husband’s bright red tie.
“Steve, what’s the matter?”
It wasn’t Louie’s voice this time, but a young woman named Marie who’d only come to work a few days before. She had reddish-brown hair, very straight, and her eyes were deep-set and dreamy, exactly the kind that in movies the leading man always yearns to kiss.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I didn’t look at her. I kept my eyes trained on the little man at the bar. “He’s going to …”
“Who?”
“I …”
She saw the order slip quivering in my hand, snatched it from me, then burst through the door and out into the dining room, striding boldly up to the bar, where Sandy took it from her, reaching thoughtlessly over the little man’s untouched glass.
I was still standing rigidly by the door when she came back into the kitchen. The little man had drunk the scotch in one quick gulp and was heading for the door. A few feet away, Joey Santucci gave his wife a kiss while his teenage daughter looked on sourly.
I felt myself collapse, as if every muscle had suddenly been ripped from its mooring. I was actually sliding helplessly toward the floor when Marie grabbed me by the arm, drew me over to the small bench beside the cutting table, and lowered me into it.
“You want me to call a doctor, Steve?” she asked urgently.
